22 Wednesday Jan 2020
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Brother David Steindl-Rast is a Benedictine monk who is known for his teachings on spirituality, most especially his writings on the virtue of gratefulness. Here’s a practice of his that I found this morning and thought worthy of sharing.
“Try pausing right before and right after undertaking a new action, even something simple like putting a key in a lock to open a door. Such pauses take a brief moment, yet may have the effect of decompressing time and centering you.”
Think about it…
02 Sunday Apr 2017
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Ancient Songs Sung Anew, despair, Easter season, familiar, forgiveness, impact, Lent, Lynn Bauman, mercy, practices, prayers, presence, Psalm 30, responsibility, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
My first thoughts on this fifth Sunday of Lent centered around my relatively low level of attention for what (in my experience anyway) was always called “the holy season of Lent.” I do not disparage that title; more Christians are likely aware of religious practice during these six weeks than at any other time in the year. It makes me wonder, however, why the fervor doesn’t often last throughout the fifty days of the Easter season. Perhaps we find it easier to do penance than to rejoice! If so, what does that have to say about our image of God? But I digress…
The tenor of my offerings over these last weeks comes, I think, from my conviction that although reminders of special times are important, it is our everyday devotion that will move us toward God, sort of a “one step at a time” approach, and I sometimes think that we become so familiar with certain prayers or practices that they can lose the impact of their meaning for us. Take Psalm 30, for instance. I can recite the whole thing and recognize that we are being called to repentance by the psalmist’s cry, but sometimes it sounds so dire – as if I am the worst sinner in the universe – that I refuse the import of what can be gained by reflection on the meaning and stop at the part about my guilt, thereby missing the resolution in the last verses. I miss both my responsibility to repair relationship and God’s willingness to allow it to happen. Maybe it’s because the psalmist is talking about the relationship of the nation of Israel to God rather than my person. Thus, I come to my point. I find in Lynn Bauman’s translation of Psalm 30 a recognition both of my responsibility for my unworthy actions and an acknowledgment of God’s willingness to hear my longing for the benevolent embrace of forgiveness and love. It only takes the effort of silence to recognize the possibility. Listen to this text below with your heart wide open.
Lord, I am calling to you again, from the depths; in this place of despair hear my voice. Listen, listen, if you will, for I am crying. If you were to note everything, all missteps and offenses, none of us could stand before you uncondemned. But always, always you forgive, and make us whole again, and so we stand in awe before you, waiting. My whole being waits for you, my God, listening for your presence. I long to hear your voice again, speaking. So like a watchman who anticipates the crack of dawn, my heart waits for the first-light of your word. Listen, listen, wait in silence listening for the One from whom all-mercy flows, who is the secret source of our redemption, and the healing of the wounds our sins have caused. (Ancient Songs Sung Anew, p. 334)
10 Wednesday Feb 2016
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40 days, Ash Wednesday, Christ's journey, consciousness, Corinthians, devotion, disciplines, God's voice, grace, harden not your hearts, humility, Joel, Lent, practices, psalm 51, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
For many Christians around the world, today is like another New Year’s Day. We are full of enthusiasm for making resolutions at the beginning of Lent, this season of pilgrimage dedicated to reflection on Christ’s journey toward Jerusalem that culminates in his passion, death and resurrection. Readings for this Ash Wednesday are full of instruction on how to act during these 40 days. The prophet Joel starts us off with a clarion call from God saying: Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart…Rend your heart, not your garments and return to the Lord, your God. Psalm 51 chimes in with this: A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me…a willing spirit sustain in me. St. Paul is his usual ardent self as he urges the Corinthians: Working together, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says, “In an acceptable time I have heard you and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is a very acceptable time…” The verse before the gospel is as familiar as it is instructive: If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.
Finally, all of these hints of how to act culminate in a message of Jesus that is full of true devotion, humility and mature practice for our actions and our prayer. Take care, Jesus says, not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them. (This is a good place to stop and think as it holds a great temptation sometimes. We all want to be well thought of, after all.) But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret…When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites…But…anoint your head and wash your face so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden…(No drama, just sincerity.)
You can see by all the ellipses that I have chosen just the snippets that serve my purpose which is to look at a deeper way to consider not just the practices that we choose as Lenten disciplines but rather at the underlying purpose of them. It is all about the heart, you see. All about our movement toward the heart of our striving, which is entrance into the heart of God. So if it is chocolate that you give up for these 40 days, do it to remind yourself each time you reach out for a piece that God is the sweetness that you truly desire. If you take a daily trek to Church, make that your inner room where you and God can be alone, in communion. Above all that we can take along on this pilgrimage, let one of our companions be a consciousness of how Jesus walked his journey in his full humanity, carrying out his mission of love and surrender to the God in whose heart he lived every moment of every day. And let us do the same, together.
The Sophia Center for Spirituality 